More than 3,000 acres added to Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site
EADS, Colo. (KRDO) -- Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and National Park Service (NPS) Director Chuck Sams were in Colorado earlier this week to visit the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site and celebrate its expansion.
The site commemorates the November 1864 assault by U.S. soldiers on an encampment of approximately 750 Native people. During the attack, the Native Americans took shelter in the high banks along Sand Creek. As they fled, many were wounded and killed. Well over half of the 230 dead were women and children.
Secretary Haaland and some prominent Colorado members of the federal and state government participated in a ceremony with leaders from the Northern Arapaho Tribe, the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, and the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes. The ceremony included the announcement of the acquisition of an additional 3,478 acres for the National Historic Site which was made possible through funding from the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF).
The Department of the Interior (DOI) said the expansion of the historic site will contribute to one of the most intact shortgrass prairie ecosystems within the National Park system, providing habitat for a wide range of plants, wildlife, and species of special concern.
“It is our solemn responsibility at the Department of the Interior, as caretakers of America’s national treasures, to tell the story of our nation. The events that took place here forever changed the course of the Northern Cheyenne, Northern Arapaho, and Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes,” said Secretary Haaland. “We will never forget the hundreds of lives that were brutally taken here."
“The newly acquired property will help to protect the historic site and sacred Tribal lands,” said Janet Frederick, Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site Superintendent.
According to the DOI, the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site was established in 2007 and preserves the lands where the massacre took place and adjacent features critical to the historic cultural landscape. The Northern and Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes consider these lands sacred.
